204 SCOLOPACIDiK. 



every assistance in their power." When the flowing tide puts 

 them off their feeding-ground, rather than be driven within shot 

 of any ambush on the shore, they adopt the curlew's custom — 

 as particularly detailed in treating of that species — of retiring to 

 rocky marine islets, several miles distant, about the entrance of 

 the bay. Thither they follow the " flights " of that cautious bird ; 

 stationed a little apart from which, I have seen several hundreds 

 congregated, patiently awaiting the falling of the tide. When 

 much disturbed, at such times, they likewise betake themselves to 

 the comparative solitude of Strangford Lough. To see a flock of 

 not less than a thousand spring direct from the beach high into 

 the air until they attain the elevation of the intervening range of 

 hills which have to be crossed, and then, in rapid flight, bear 

 straight onwards to Strangford, is an interesting and beautiful 

 sight. During a few years of late, these nights were taken less 

 frequently than before, the birds having discovered a tract of 

 good feeding-ground, about two miles in length, on the Antrim 

 side of the bay, bounded by a public road, which rendered it a 

 kind of preserve, as no shooting was permitted. They remained 

 there daily in great numbers, about the time of high water, for 

 eight months of the year. A railway embankment has since been 

 thrown up between the sea and this tract, and corn now waves 

 over a considerable portion of it, where the redshanks and allied 

 species so lately appeared in countless myriads. When spring- 

 tides encroach on their territory, it is interesting to see them 

 flocked on little floating masses of Zoster a. To keep their 

 enemies at a respectful distance, they will sometimes alight in 

 water of such a depth that the entire legs are concealed and the 

 under plumage wetted. It was comical, on one occasion, to see 

 a redshank resting for a time on the top of a single plant of the 

 bladder sea- wrack {Fucus vesiculosus) , which rose to the surface 

 from deep-water, and did not yield beneath the bird's weight. 



Redshanks are well known to dive when wounded. They 

 have frequently been observed in Belfast Bay, when feeding and 

 getting gradually into water too deep for wading, to swim across 

 where the distance was short, rather than rise and fly. They 



